Does This Suit Make me Look Fat?

Well, does it?

Actually it kind of makes you look like a big egg with legs.

Or perhaps a bird, a white giant parakeet with that mask forming a beak.

The masks hurt. At least mine did. It has this band across the nose that really pinched.

It is hard to breathe in these things when you have a totally clear head, but coming off the flu makes it a real ordeal. They weren't meant for running noses, I'll tell you that. I had to go outside several times and blow my nose.

That's right, I came down with the flu right after our last trip, which was on December 22. I wasn't completely over it yet. On top of that, I woke with arthritis flaming through my left foot. How great was that? I could barely stand up and I was going for a day of stand up work. I popped a couple Tylenols and left my foot to drugs and God.

What am I doing in this contraption anyway? Oh, didn't you know this is the latest style from Calvin Klein? Actually it is more in line with Calvin Slime or the House of Mold. We were up on the Island above Seaside Heights gutting out the houses flooded in Hurricane Sandy. This suits protect our clothes and us from contamination and the masks protect our lungs. This house had a lot of black mold.

This is the job to have if you like hard work fraught with some possible risk, long days and low pay. The pay is zero, zip, nana, but the reward is great when you see the gratitude in the homeowners' faces.

Here we are, gathering at 5:15 in the morning to make the hour and half trip north. Rick, the name of the man in the middle, is having some coffee against the chill (a balmy 30 degrees this morning).

I skip that particular treat when I head off on these trips. There aren't any working toilets where we're going and porta-potties are few and far between and I'm in my 70s and you know what age can do to your drainage system. I don't need any coffee helping with that.

Excuse the indelicacy here, but usually I make a run to the restroom at the church in Toms River where we gather before heading out for the day. This didn't work well this morning. I have a bashful bladder and the restroom at the church had one stall and one urinal. The stall was occupato, but I got to the urinal first. Unfortunately for me, Rick was right behind me and stood near waiting. This caused my inner-workings to go on bashful strike and I left with anything I entered with.

We went and did the first house, which was on the mainland.

Then after a couple hours we finished up and headed for the island. We stop at a furniture store (pictured left) to make sure everyone in our convoy is present before going over the bay bridge to the island. Our leader pulled into a Wawa, though, before we got that far. Several people headed inside to use the restroom. Some of us, like myself, decided to wait and use a port-potty. They had one at the furniture store lot and I figured I'd hit it and be good for the rest of the day. Surprise! When we got to the furniture store that port-potty was no longer there.

WE worked until 4:30 and then had to leave the island before the police shut it up for the night. Our group stopped at a restaurant to eat on the way home. I figured at this point I'd held it this long, I'd make it home, except the waitress kept refilling my Pepsi. It was a big glass, after all, this was Jersey, not New York City where that elitist snob Mayor Bloomin'boob runs the food police and bans big sodas. (The first of the  Pepsis is pictured on the right with its silly straw.)

When she brought the third Pepsi I decided it was time to head to the pit stop.  I know, I didn't have to drink all that, but waste not, want not. There are thirsty children somewhere in the world who would love three pints of Pepsi.

I make light, but it is a sad situation for all those people caught by Hurricane Sandy. It was just before Halloween they were devastated, over two months ago and so far mostly what they have gotten from the government, local, state and federal, are excuses and the runaround.

Drip Dropping Down the Drain

Twenty-nine years ago I pretty much lost a house to the flow of water. I understand the power of water unchecked. It can take out your ceiling, strip off your wallpaper, warp your floors and shut down your appliances. Beyond all the physical damage it can also flood a young mind with paranoia over even the gentlest patter of a spring rain. Ask my daughter about the years of nightmare and terror she swam through in her early youth.

     I've respected water since that time, but it hasn't shown me much respect at all. It certainly didn't this past month.

     It started with an inconsistent drip. I say inconsistent because it was easily stilled by turning the faucet to the center. If the handle stayed at the extreme hot or the extreme cold point, it dripped. Turn it a few degrees toward center and voila, the drip stopped.

     These things never stay so cooperative forever, of course. Eventually it took a bit more to silence the drip. You had to get it positioned to some exact spot for a while, then you had to slam the handle down more firmly and then you had to slam the handle down with a force like John Henry laying spike on the railroad. You know, ka-boom, sometimes more than once. Yet in the end the drip surrendered and shut up.

     Until a couple weeks ago when the drip did not cease, but instead became a waterfall. Oh, it was a thin waterfall, perhaps a quarter inch in diameter, but one doesn't really want a quarter-inch stream of water flowing day and night, does one? Besides how soon will the quarter inch become a half-inch, then an inch and then come with such viscosity the drain can't handle it.

     So I opened the doors of the vanity and shut the two shut-off valves.

     The steady flow ceased, but the drip returned mocking me and the firmness of the valves with a semi-steady drip...drip...drip.

      I did a little up and down slam of the handle and knew immediately the mechanism was beyond hope. Thinking I may have suddenly received some wondrous handyman abilities, I decided perhaps I could disassemble the device and do something, what exactly I haven't a clue.

      Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That's an old American proverb and I'm an old American, so I get my ratchet screwdriver, pop in a Phillip's head and give it a venture.

      There is a screw on top of the knob. There used to be a gold-colored disc covering where the screw resides, but it popped off and disappeared some years ago, so the screw is right there in plain sight. I slot in the screwdriver and twist. I twist, but the screw doesn't. Okay, a bit more muscle is needed. Unfortunately the screws been working out down at the gym and it ain't budging. I mean, this is one tough monkey of a screw. Usually with the ratchet driver I can defeat your average screw, but this isn't your average screw. This is super screw.

     Maybe it is my screw bit. I dig a larger Phillip's head out of the kit and try it, but it just skims out of the grooves. This screw is not going to come out, which is probably a good thing because what am I going to do if it does? Let stubborn screws lie is my motto.

      It's going to nag at my mind now like a dripping faucet. Oh, wait a minute, it is a dripping faucet. It's a dripping faucet dripping even though I got both pipe shut off valves as tight as they go. It doesn't seem there is anything but this situation growing worse.

  


       It's time to call the plumber.    

How Big was My Vanity?

"Yessir," says the young lady, "you are a premium Customer."

      That is good to hear and what it means is I have the Golden Ticket or the gold yearly maintenance contract anyway.

      "We could have a technician out to your place this morning."

      Technician is it? I'm old enough to remember a day when people had titles that actually meant something.  In this case, technician means a plumber. A plumber is a person who works with lead, although they don't make pipes out of lead anymore since they found out it tends to kill people. But I still prefer plumber because that tells me this person can unclog drains and fix drips...presumably. My great grandfather was in the building trade and he had four sons. One was a carpenter, one was an electrician, one was a plumber and one was a bookkeeper. What they were was what they did. None was ever called a technician.

    "Well," I said, "that's fine, but could we schedule it for next week (it was 7:00 Friday morning when I made the call). How about Tuesday."

     So Tuesday between 8:00 and 10:00 AM was when it would be, assuming the drip didn't turn back to a flood despite the turned-off shut off valves. If those shut-off valves were to fail altogether we would have to shut down the entire system and no one wants to go days with no flowing water in the house. Been there, done that and don't want to go back.

    But why are we waiting if the plumb...sorry, technician could come this very day?

    Because the Little Woman (which is probably the wrong euphemism for someone five foot ten inches tall) wanted to replace the old vanity in the bathroom. It seemed better to do it when the plumb...technician came to replace the faucet than have a second visit later. I mean, plumb...technicians never say, "Oh don't worry about a second call, we don't charge for that." We can use the weekend to go shop both a new vanity and new faucet.

    Naturally the young lady on the phone offered to have the plumb...technician bring their catalogue with him as a nice convenience to us, but you know that convenience would have a price. I'm sure they have nice stuff, but we're bargain basement people I fear and their catalogue items are probably a few floors higher.

      Saturday morning we are off to the home supply stores.

     We had barely gotten up the road,when it dawned on me I had forgotten to do any measuring. I meant to and didn't, which happens a lot being an old guy. We do a U-turn (legal in Delaware) and go back hope and I measure. I don't want the plumber coming and saying this thing won't fit.  It's measure or regret, I alway say.

      First off, we have a tiny bathroom. There is space for a tub, a toilet, a sink and the person using them.  It is not a designer bath, no place for bidets and double sinks, lounge chairs and makeup desks. It's pretty utilitarian and that's about it. Years ago we installed a vanity. It was twenty inches wide. I screwed a toilet paper holder into one side. The other side was up against the wall.

     Now we finally get to the home supply store, Lowe's.

     There is a number of vanities to look at and select, but there is not one that comes as small as twenty inches wide. The smallest in any shape, style or stature is 24 inches.

     We can do it. Twenty-four inches will fit. Anything bigger and when you go to sit on the toilet you'll be sitting in the sink, but 24 will fit.

     The price tag on most of the displayed items won't fit though. Not just the price of the vanities, but with most you also have to buy a sink separately.  But there is one my wife likes and the cost isn't bad and it includes the sink. It seems ideal, except it is "special ordered" with a two-week wait until delivery.

    The plumb...technician is scheduled in three days.

    And about this time a salesman ambles up to us. He says the wrong thing.

     "We just upgraded our whole selection. We got rid of all the low-end product. You'll find everything nicely upscaled now, no more of the more shoddy items."

      My wife thought that was plum crazy (or is it "tech crazy" now). We are not upscale people. Oh no, when it comes to scales we're on the down-low. There are a lot of people like us who can't go upscale. Call us shoddy or not, why would a big box store do away with the low end customer, especially in this economy?

     Next stop, Home Depot.

     There was a bit less selection, but they still had "shoddy" along with the upscale, nothing less than 24 inches wide, though. Lo and behold, my wife did find a vanity, a darker wood than our old, which came complete with a white sink at a sale price. She liked it because it had two drawers on one side, not just a big hollow opening inside.

     Right across the aisle were some nice looking faucets just the right size for this vanity.

     We had our new vanity and faucet, we hauled them home and now it was just wait for the plumb...technician to come on Tuesday morning and  snap everything into place. What could possibly go wrong now?



  

Water Flows Directly Through My Wallet

About 8:00 Tuesday morning the phone rings. It is a young lady telling me the technician is on his way. He arrived ten minutes later. This is a nice change. Usually when given those between 8:00 and 10:00 windows one is pacing back and forth at four minutes to ten wondering if they will make it when the phone rings to say the last job took longer than expected. That didn't happen this time, must be a good omen.

I went to the door and this kid is standing there. I have noticed since reaching my present age that all the maintenance people who come to service something are kids.

But he is pleasant enough. He slips these booties over his shoes and comes in to see what is to be done.

Well, of course there is that unstoppable faucet in the bathroom and the new vanity, sink and hardware to be installed. There is also a faucet on the outside front of the house that has been dripping for the last eight months or so. My wife figured we should get that replaced as well. And there is the bathtub faucet that seems to be developing its own slow drip. I figure the tub could use a new shower head, too.

He takes a look at the tub faucet. It is a Delta. He doesn't take kindly to the Delta. "It's a good faucet," he says, "but the design is terrible."

He explains how it has three little pipes that connect inside. There is a giant nut behind the knob. The danger is with the faucet having some age now that when the nut is turned it will twist and break the pipes. Then you have a bigger repair.

He examines the sink faucet and agrees it is shot.

We walk outside and look at the leaky faucet.

So after this little tour we go to the kitchen and he begins flipping pages in a book. All jobs are priced up front, no hourly rates, no guesswork. So he tells me the costs and one thing is immediately clear, the tub can wait until another day or a worse leak. Not only is he nervous about snapping pipes removing the Delta, the quote to replace it with a Moan and replace the shower and all is a bit steep for me right now.

We sign the agreements, which includes a three-day change your mind agreement like they always give you when you borrow money or get a mortgage. Seems kind of silly, although with what plumbing work costs maybe one does need a mortgage.  Still, he is going to do the work right now, this instant before the ink dries so what happens if I change my mind in the next three days? Do they come back and unrepair the repairs?

"We'll start with the bathroom sink," he says.

He goes into the hall and looks the vanity over. He is making hmmm-hmmm sounds. I never like to hear hmmm-hmmm sounds coming from the throat of anyone doing work for me. They're not a cat, they're not purring. (I don't think they are purring. Perhaps considering how much I will be paying them, they are purring.)

Here is the reason for the hmmm-hmmms. Our old vanity, the one being replaced, is 20 inches wide. This new model, with the two drawers down the right side that my wife likes so much, is 24 and with the new sink added will be 25 inches wide.  He is concerned the drain pipe will not line up, especially with the drawers taking up half the space.

Oh, boy, I did all this measurement to make sure the thing would fit in our small bath, but never considered the drain pipe perplexity. I had considered the water feed lines lining up given the four inch differential, but having looked in the old vanity and seen those feed lines had flexible pipe I figured it didn't matter. I didn't think the drain would be somehow a different matter.

He does some measuring and then says he may have to cut some off of the drawers, is that all right. Yeah, fine, I don't care cause I don't want to take this thing back and reschedule. (As it turned out he didn't have to cut. He got everything fitted in nicely, if tightly.)

We dodged that bullet and he installed the vanity and sink.

Now we are left with replacing the outside drippy faucet. This should be a piece of cake, I thought. Ha, what a fool I am.

First was the matter of how this would be accomplished. In my naivete I thought the faucet would simply twist off the pipe similar to unscrewing a lightbulb, except maybe with some cutting and soldering involved. Well, cutting and soldering probably was involved, but the faucet could not be removed and replaced from the outside of the house. The pipe had to be worked from the interior of the home.

Second we had to locate this interior pipe. When they built this house they did not make such things as pipe easily accessible. Every time I ever had to get plumping done it resulted in cutting holes in walls or ceilings. This was no different. The pipe ran between walls and would have to be reached by cutting a hole in the back of the entryway closet.

"We don't patch drywall," says the technician.

Yeah, I know, I've heard that several times. Why plumbers are so handy doing a lot of more complicated stuff, but can't patch walls and ceilings they chop up I do not know. It must be a union thing.

Third, he asks where the shut off valve is. Ha, there's the rub. If there was a shut off valve and I knew where it was, that faucet wouldn't have dripped for eight months.  Everything else in the place has a shutoff valve. The sinks do. The outside faucet in the rear of the house has one right in the laundry room above the shut off valve for the water heater. It is a big red lever. You can't miss it.

We begin a search, but as stated, everything is behind walls and ceilings.  We can't even be sure how this pipe meanders about. We get a flashlight and enter the storage shed downstairs, which runs back under the stairs. This is a dark, sometimes low, full of stuff, little room where the main shut off valve is. We search. He sees the pipe that has to be that outside faucet running into the main system, but doesn't spot any shut off valve. So the whole system has to be shut down.

Now it is time for action. There should be nothing more standing in the way, right?

Now the Whole Hole Thing

The technician and I have abandoned any further search for a shut off valve on the external faucet. We have shut off the entire water supply to the house and he is ready to replace that dripping spigot.

(What's the difference between a faucet and a spigot? One starts with f and one with s. They are two words we Americans use for what the British call a tap.)

He goes to his truck and comes back with a bucket, torch, and a reciprocal saw.

Now we have some cats. When the plumber first came and examined the new vanity to be installed, Mark jumped inside as soon as he opened the door. I am concerned about a cat jumping in the hole he is about to make and becoming lost inside out walls. However, once he turned on that overgrown saber saw there is such a gut-wrenching noise all the cats scatter to their preferred hide-y-holes beneath sofas and bureaus. No feline is going to pester the guy while he is doing this work.

Since the pipe is behind the wall of our entryway closet (the double doors to the left of the cats in the picture) I first must empty it out and make space. It is amazing how many coats one can have they never seem to wear. I pull everything off the rod and carry this apparel to the bedroom. I still must remove various items from off the closet floor. Everything not in immediate use gets chucked into this closet.

Now he can begin with his noisy saw and fix this tap trouble.

The hole is cut and the saw is silent and I hear a "Hmmm".

As stated previously, "hmmm"s are never a good sign. He calls me.

He is concerned about what lies behind the wall. We both squat down to peer through the square he cut.

"There's this two by four," he says.

I can see it.

"The pipe is behind it and up about two or three inches."

We both feel up behind this board. Yes, I can feel the pipe right up against the back of this plank.

"I don't know what this board is," he says. "it runs all the way up about two feet."

We both reach up as far as we can through the hole to measure the height of this board. It does indeed stretch up about two feet  therefore, it is not a two by four; more a two by twenty-four. So what is the problem.

"I just don't know why this board is here," he continues. "I have to cut it to reach the pipe, but I just don't know what it is."

"You have to cut it?"

"Yes. There is no other way I can reach the pipe. But I'm not sure what this board is and I'm reluctant to cut it."

Now he is scaring me. What is he saying? Is he saying if he cuts the board the whole house tumbles down around our ears?

Whatever, he really doesn't want to cut the board.

Now he goes outside and takes a wrench to the faucet. He removed the handle and pulls out the upper assembly. I see him go to the truck. He comes back with a short length of pipe with an old faucet in its middle. He sits down and he is tinkering with this old spigot.

Finally he comes back in and calls me.

"I thought maybe I could do something with the washer," he says. (Gee, why didn't we start there?) "But when I got it apart the whole bottom was missing, no washer or screw. I thought maybe I could use part of an old faucet, but nothing fit, so I just put your spigot back together.

"I won't charge you anything for the job because I couldn't fix it."

So we settle up the bill and he goes his way. I have my vanity installed and my bathroom faucet problem solved, but I am also left with a hole in the wall and a leaking outside tap.

We've lived with its little drip for eight months, I guess we can live with forever more.

I figure I better patch up the hole before some cat discovers it. I go to the utility room and look for some spackle or patch. All my containers have dried up. I'll have to run out and buy some.

As I leave, I notice it is only a few minutes past ten. I decide to drive to the DMV and get my car inspected. This has also been worrying my mind all summer. In this state when you buy a new car you don't have to have it inspected or buy a new registration sticker for five years. My car is now five years old and my sticker expires on August 15.  I have not had a very lucky season and I am nervous that the car won't pass, that it will need brakes or shutter, dread, stark fear, not pass the emissions test.

But we are already into the first week of August and I can't put it off too much longer. What is something is wrong? I'll need time to get it fixed. I had been thinking about taking it to the DMV tomorrow, Wednesday, after work. This is the only day the DMV stays open late. But today I am off, it is still early, let's get it over with.

The state does the inspection here. You go through a bay and they work it over. The disadvantage is you sometimes wait in a long line. The advantage is you know exactly what is wrong, if anything, and no garage mechanic can sell you on something you don't need done.

I drive down the inspection lanes and am the third car in line in lane two. I am watching the inspectors working ahead. They seem to be going through it fairly fast and I don't see them sticking any hoses up tailpipes or anything. Maybe they are going easy today and skipping steps.

I am finally number one and motioned down. Come on, come on, come on, he is motioning and then the "hit it" sign and I slam to a stop. This is the brake test. The man asks me for my registration card and how many miles I have. He disappears into his both, makes some marks, hands me back my card and says pull up to any bay with a green light.

They have changed the procedure. Now you go through two bays. This was just the brake check. Here we go, nervous time all over again.

I am again third in line. Now I am two in line and the car before me is motioned all the way down into the bay and the inspector comes walking out of the bay with an orange pyramid. What is this? He motions me forward to just inside the door and motions the car behind me up closer. He then sets the pyramid behind that car. Wow, just made it, this guy is shutting down the lane. Probably going on his lunch break.

I get to the actual inspection station. He walks about the car, lights, high beam, blow the horn, left turn signal, right turn signal, same in the rear, put the car in park and step out please.

No, I'm not being arrested. In newer cars they no longer have to stick a pipe up the tailpipe. They plug a cord into something beneath the dash board. It is much faster than the old days.

He tells me to get back in the car. He tells me everything is fine. He wishes me a good day.

What relief. I worried for nothing. I have passed, now I just need to go inside and pay for a new sticker. I always get the two-year one. The less I go through inspection, the better.

I drive to the administration building and there are no parking spaces. I drive up a row and down a row and around a row and each time if a space opens someone coming the other direction always grabs it before I can get there. I drive out of that lot and ahead is another lot with plenty of spaces. As I enter it I see a sign, "Employee Parking Only" off to my right.

I circle around and go back to the administration building lot. Still no spaces. I see people walking out of that other lot with papers in their hands. The heck with it, I'm parking over there. Maybe employee parking is only the right section.

I get in the building and take a number as if I am at the deli counter of the super market. I have 911. 9/11 is this an omen. Last spring when I came here on another matter I got 666.

Like the deli department, they call your number and direct you to a window. I look at the number now being serviced, 982. I have a wait ahead.

Two hours later, after a quick stop at a hardware store, I am back home patching the hole.

He has cut it in two pieces. I paste in the first piece. Now I get the second piece and set it atop of the first and my hand slips and this piece disappears behind the wall. I remove the first piece again and reach behind the wall as far down as I can. No piece. I can feel a ridge of floor, but just a bit over is another space and into this space the second piece must have fell. It has disappeared into our walls to who knows where, perhaps the Land of Oz.

I reset the first piece. I retrieve all our coats and rehang them. I put the other junk back in the closet. I close the closet doors. As far as I'm concerned the faucet fiasco is over.

If only the faucet had felt that way.

And So It Flows

It is Wednesday, woeful Wednesday, another day in early August in the heat of summer. Not all the plumbing problems were completely solved, but I suppose one can live with a hole in the closet wall and a slightly dripping outside faucet.

Today it is back to work and other things to deal with and it is Wednesday, wonderful Wednesday, when we go out to dinner. Something to look forward to where we will escape the rigors of the week.

I work part-time, not full days. My day is done by mid-afternoon and I go home. I pull in the driveway at 2:30 thinking perhaps I will work on my Blogs or maybe just catch up on another episode of "Lost" on DVD.

As I step from the car, my wife steps out of the house walking down the path toward me. Wives popping out of the house to greet is never a good thing.

"We have a problem," is her greeting.

"What?"

She points to the middle of the front yard where the sprinkler sits at the end of the hose that runs from the external tap. A foot high spray loops in the air from its many holes.

Ah, ha, when the plumber fiddled with the spigot he couldn't fix he made it worse. This is not a good thing.

I go in and immediately to the phone and call our plumbing contractor. The young lady who answers is very commiserative and assures me she can have a technician to our house between 5:00 and 7:00 that evening.

Well, there goes dinner out.

I hang up, go to the hall closet and find a flashlight that works. My wife asks what I am doing.

"I want to see just where this pipe (to the faucet) goes."

I know it runs in from the spigot about two feet east of our front door and I know it then goes behind the entryway closet wall and is behind a big board behind the wall. I know it connects into the main system downstairs in the storage closet. But where does it come down, can I see anything important down in that closet.

The closet is very dark, there is no light inside. Actually, there was, the fixture is still there, but we had some electrical work done many years ago and the electricians said they couldn't fix this fixture for some reason I forget. Can't anyone fix anything anymore. Possibly not. (See my essay in Life, Death and the Lonely Art, "Nobody Knows Anything, Including Me".)

The people who owned this house before us did a lot of -- uh -- improvements. They built a rough and rickety bunch of shelves in the storage closet where it runs beneath the stairs . I have covered these shelves with plastic bins holding the junk we insist on holding on to forever. I also fill the storage closet with larger such bins containing our Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine Day and what-ever-else Hallmark holiday that demands cluttering up the house with cardboard and tinsel. Most of these I had removed to allow the plumber access to the main shut off valve, but I had left the others on the shelves. Now I remove a couple of these and shine my light under the stairs.

What to my wondering eyes should appear? Well, the pipe that runs to the outside front faucet of course. I see it runs back to the rear wall then curves up to where it will meet another joint behind my entryway closet and head outside. But what is that thing sticking down about two inches just before the pipe reaches the back wall. Could that be a shut off valve?

Perhaps, but there is no lever or wheel on it and I'm not touching anything at this point. Let the plumber do it.

And wait, what is that laying back on the shelf? It's the piece of wall board he cut out yesterday that I dropped between the walls. It didn't go to the Land of Oz after all; it just went to the downstairs storage closet.

The plumber; that is, technician, the same kid from the day before is back. I take him down to the storage closet and sure enough we have a shut off valve after all. You just need a pair of pliers to turn it shut.

He is still nervous about that two inch by twenty-four inch board that hides the pipe, but what choice do we have. If we don't want to bleed water profusely across our lawn forever or climb over boxes to a well-hid almost-out-of-reach shut off valve perpetually, we are going to have to cut.

"You're not going to cut the whole board (you know, the whole twenty-four inches), just a little about like the hole in the wall you cut, right?"

"I'm going to cut enough to work," he says. "but you'll have to sign off on it."

"Then cut," I say.

He cuts. He doesn't need to snip much from the board at all, even less that the hole he made in my wall. Why, oh why, didn't we just do this yesterday?

He is there less than an hour replacing the old faucet with a new one. The house didn't cave in around our ears. there have been no quivers and there have been no more drips.

The new spigot is a bit stiff to turn on and off being new, but the important thing is after you turn it off, you absolutely have turned it off. And the new one has a pretty red wheel.

Man, I hate what water can do! Especially to my wallet.

Now all I have to do is finish patching the hole in the wall.

And wait for the reluctant refrigerator...but that's a different story.

End of a Perfect...Ha!

Just a quick follow up on this gloomy day. It was a day off, a time I get to take a good walk, which you know if you read my last post, did not happen.

As if to taunt, the wild winds, which lashed the trees and almost blew a sneaky squirrel out of the bird feeder it had invaded, by mid-morning blew out our power.

We remained in the dark-ages until late afternoon. Oh, how dependent we moderns have come on electricity. Everything in my life today resides in a computer and our entertainment in a wide box.

Habit also rules. Each time I entered another room of this rainy day dreary house I would flip the wall switch; how futile, how foolish.

Then in late afternoon a mysterious voice came out of the air. It wasn't God, it was something through the system modem. But at once I knew it was back. I now tried a wall switch and voila, light.

This was followed by the modern ritual known as resetting all the digital clocks in the house.

But all was not right. The TV came on with sound, but no picture. That's not good. I could display the channel guide. I checked the cables. No change. I could put a DVD in the player and it would play perfectly, sound, picture, the works, but trying to watch TV, no picture.

I called my provider and got a message there was a problem with service in my area, they were working on it. Still now late into this evening the same message, the same condition. Hopefully all will be right with the world in the morning.

Still and all, I feel certain the problem lies with the cable provider, not with my TV. I am in no position financially to have to replace that TV.

And then as I am all snuggled down for a long night's sleep, just drifted off to that far from troubles land, I am jarred awake by the Little Woman. It is pouring outside, I can hear the drain pipes rattle. It is not quite midnight. Will this day never end? My son's driver side window has dropped into the door and he can't get it up. Water is streaming into his front seat. Do I have anything to plug the dam.

I struggle back into my clothes and get a large plastic drop cloth from the basement. This we drape over his car door and shut it. This will keep the rain out, but he will have to get his window fixed and tomorrow I will have to run him to his job and back.

I return to bed with these incomplete problems dancing like rotting sugarplums in my head. I am soaked. I towel off and lay down and sing the Tomorrow song from Annie.

Yes, the perfect end to a something or other.